Don’t You Get Weary
Tony Nester
John 4:31-34
What if we take seriously the hymn we just sang that says God can be the vision at the center of our lives?
“Thou are my best thought, by day or by night, waking or sleeping thy presence my light.”
Wouldn’t that be a wonderful way to live? Imagine God at the center of our lives each and every day!
But can we actually live this way? Can we put it into practice in the midst of the stresses and strains, the disappointments and defeats, the confusion and conflicts of our lives?
The answer is “Yes. . . but”: “Yes, but only if we experience God as the sustaining power at work in our lives.”
And that’s what I want to talk with you about this morning — the power that sustains living a God-honoring life.
Jesus taught this to his disciples on a variety of occasions, one of which is recorded by the Gospel of John in the 4th Chapter of that Gospel.
There’s a famous story in this chapter about Jesus stopping at a well in Samaria and asking a woman there to give him a drink.
It’s a great story with lots of different meanings — Jesus’ attitude toward women, how Jesus overcame the division between Jews and Samaritans, Jesus as the Living Water, how Jesus did evangelism.
But today I want to focus on the part of the story where Jesus surprises his disciples by telling them that he has a secret supply of food. Food in this part of the story is a symbol for the sustaining power that nourishes our souls and keeps us strong.
John tells us that the disciples had left Jesus at a well in Samaria to rest from the long journey from Judea to Galilee. They had run out of food and had walked off to a nearby town to buy what they could find - perhaps some bread and cheese.
As they return they see Jesus talking with a Samaritan woman. This sets off all kinds of alarms in them because:
1) Jews aren’t supposed to have contact with Samaritans due to the religious rivalry that existed between ...
Tony Nester
John 4:31-34
What if we take seriously the hymn we just sang that says God can be the vision at the center of our lives?
“Thou are my best thought, by day or by night, waking or sleeping thy presence my light.”
Wouldn’t that be a wonderful way to live? Imagine God at the center of our lives each and every day!
But can we actually live this way? Can we put it into practice in the midst of the stresses and strains, the disappointments and defeats, the confusion and conflicts of our lives?
The answer is “Yes. . . but”: “Yes, but only if we experience God as the sustaining power at work in our lives.”
And that’s what I want to talk with you about this morning — the power that sustains living a God-honoring life.
Jesus taught this to his disciples on a variety of occasions, one of which is recorded by the Gospel of John in the 4th Chapter of that Gospel.
There’s a famous story in this chapter about Jesus stopping at a well in Samaria and asking a woman there to give him a drink.
It’s a great story with lots of different meanings — Jesus’ attitude toward women, how Jesus overcame the division between Jews and Samaritans, Jesus as the Living Water, how Jesus did evangelism.
But today I want to focus on the part of the story where Jesus surprises his disciples by telling them that he has a secret supply of food. Food in this part of the story is a symbol for the sustaining power that nourishes our souls and keeps us strong.
John tells us that the disciples had left Jesus at a well in Samaria to rest from the long journey from Judea to Galilee. They had run out of food and had walked off to a nearby town to buy what they could find - perhaps some bread and cheese.
As they return they see Jesus talking with a Samaritan woman. This sets off all kinds of alarms in them because:
1) Jews aren’t supposed to have contact with Samaritans due to the religious rivalry that existed between ...
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